Democracy to Die in Ohio…Details at 11

Jennifer Brunner wants our support in opposing House Bill 3. I don’t know. Two sides of me are fighting each other over this one. The childish side of me is saying: “Hey! Isn’t this one of the Dems who would NOT get behind Reform Ohio Now fully?”. Which makes me want to blow off her petition to stop State Bill 3. The more mature and pragmatic side of me knows that this bill is harmful and should be stopped.

HB3’s most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over.

The impetus? Well, let’s see here. A horribly corrupt GOP majority. A Republican president who can barely keep his approval nose above water. A convicted Republican Governor. Investigations out the wazoo. I’d say this might could be strategy groundwork intended to neutralize any Democratic uprising, wouldn’t you? Just maybe. Fitrakis & Wasserman certainly think so:

The GOP-drafted HB3 is designed to all but obliterate any possible future Democratic revival. Opposition from the Ohio Democratic Party, where it exists at all, is diffuse and ineffectual.

It’s all just simple measures to ensure that people are properly identified at the polls and that there is no fraud happening. Nothing to see here…please move along. Hey Kevin. Idea for ya. How about we properly identify Triad workers at the polls. Whatcha think about that? Good idea? Don’t give me this crap about being simple measures to make sure no fraud happens. It’s a smokescreen. One of those “Hey, look over here” type arguments. The GOP MUST find a way to suppress more voters and lower the turnout or their goose is cooked in the next go-round…and they know it.